Examples of some of the finest reasoning the Authorship debate can offer. This
is, naturally, a work in progress.

An Illiterate Effort

Greg Koch on something or other

Pending translation, we have included this enigmatic post in the original
gibberish.

Dr. Shapiro has only one mistake in his premise: namely, "Shakespeare" was
also a Jacobean poet.
The only flaw I can point out is Shapiro's lack of scientific know-how.
It is unproven (even theoretically) that Shakespeare wrote his works just prior
to the quarto/octavo printings. Also that great poets, like "Shakespeare" or "Shake-speare" (or
in print no reference to the author's name on the front matter) did not rely
at all on the messy adolecence English stationers faced in printing from at
best scant manuscript copy. Thus, poets always used manuscripts to circulate
their works and continuously until the late 17th century. Notwithstanding this
reliance on manuscripts and scribes, you can also predict the pattern of often
two (2) decades before textually inferior or fragmented manuscripts ended in
stationer's hands. This fashionable then out of fashion duration is also stated
on the front matter as "divers times" of performance.
There are other proofs affirming our genius poet is solely an Elizabethan creation,
as described scientifically especially in the past 40 years. Too many to include
here. Foremost is the fact Shakespeare received an unusual license to continuosly
perform his works at palaces - in front of the crown. This priviledged acceptance
placed him somewhere high up among the upper class audience - at least being
an intellectual equal.
The Stratford man wasn't an intellect and, granted, although he was born with
a similar name in consideration of wide ranging spelling variations he simply
lacked everything in his background that could place him in favor at court
for more than a few seconds!

A Leg Awry

Here's Mildred L. B. Sexton setting the bar as low as it will go for a lesson
on allegory. I wonder if she ever had one? It doesn't seem very likely, does
it?

All Shakespeare plays are ALLEGORIES. Here is an
exercise that has been used effectively for both teens and Lifelong Learning.
The wool is pulled from their eyes once they are hands on.

Shakespeare’s Animal Stories Exercise

Condensed Version

Equipment: Spiral or loose-leaf notebook or 3
loose pages

l. Think of a troubling episode involving you
and one or more other people.

2. On your first blank page, detail the episode
briefly using just short phrases.

3. Turn to a new blank page. Down the page, leaving
spaces in between, list yourself and each individual involved.

4. Go back to the top of this page and give yourself
and each individual listed an animal name and description that best suits
them and the particular situation.
Avoid linking animal types together as they appear in nature if this is not
true in the episode. It is important to stay true in depicting each individual
no matter how bizarre.

5. Turn to a new blank page. Write the episode
out fully using the animal identities now instead of the actual ones. A stranger
reading this would never suspect the TRUTH!

6. Here is your allegory! Oxford/Shakespeare
plays are his “animal stories” in which he has depicted troubling incidents
in his life with the individuals and entities involved by cloaking them in
allegorical form.

The last three lines mention ‘Fame’ and ‘ever’ three times. Three forms of
‘you’ are stated: thou, thy, you. Repetitive frequency in Elizabethan verse
suggests a sub-textual signal. In Aristotle’s numerical adage, tria sunt
omnia, all things come in threes. Waldron added, “It is [commonplace] how thrice
and four times express a superlative.” (Fowler, p. 70)

Next to one ‘ever’, which is an anagram of Vere, is the pronoun ‘you’ which
has particular meaning in de Verean verse. Namely, “Sitting alone upon my thought
in melancholy mood”, (see Appendices— Sitting Alone Echo Verses) an accepted
de Vere poem, features ‘you(th)’ four times in four lines as a pun on the vocalized
‘Ee-ooo’ initials, self-identifying the Earl of Oxford. The four Vere’s are
transparent. But the ‘you(th)’s’ are not as plain. We cannot vocalize ‘you’
without initiating the phantom long-eee sound in the palate, approximating
the ‘EO’ initials of his title. Then there are two ‘ay’s’, prompting the educated
Elizabethan reader to the Italian equivalent of I, I’O, first person singular,
which sounds like Oxford’s initials, ‘E-O’. So there are ten Vere cues in the
early poem, which in turn cue us to the printed integer 10, which looks like
the Italian word for ‘I’, ‘I’O’, again like ‘you’ a vocalization of the Earl
of Oxford initials, ‘EO’.

Finally, implicit to the last rhyme “live ever” and “dies never” is its use
of the Vere anagram, ever, and the compound de Vere pen-name, ‘Ever or Never’.
(See Appendices—Ever or Never) This ‘ever-never’ phrase famously reappears
in the dedicatory epistle to Troilus and Cressida—“A Never Writer, to
an Ever Reader, Newes.” (See Appendices—Ever or Never Headline) In the headline,
Vere’s anagram ‘Ever’ begins at the seventeenth character. 17th Earl of
Oxford. The entire sentence is thirty-four characters, twice seventeen. The
first thirty-three characters placed in a Cardano three-line grid of eleven
characters each reveal the initials, ‘EO’, and the family name Vere twice.'

Anonymous

Palladis Tamia through the goggles

"Palladis Tamia also contains a puzzle, a frequent amusement included in literary
almanacs in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, which compares sixteen ancient
playwrights to their (unevenly numbered) seventeen leading counterparts in
then modern England. The Earl of Oxford ranked first, "the best for comedy
among us bee [1] Edward Earl of Oxford". [i.e., 17th Earl of Oxford] Shakespeare
was listed ninth. As the second list had one extra, the puzzle consisted in
determining which of the seventeen moderns was simply a fictitious name for
one of the other sixteen. Kenneth A. Hieatt stated that "...beneath a simple
literal surface profound symbolic communication of an integrated continuity
should take place covertly" in Renaissance literary contexts. This appears
to be the case with the puzzle, because the Earl of Oxford's initials, EO,
is the phonetic sound of 'I' in Italian,IO, which in turn looks like 10, the
sum of Oxford [1] and Shakespeare [9]. It was a pastime for literary minds
to ponder and best each other by, while leaving the average reader to believe
the listing uncritically.

For modern historical purposes, it appears to indicate Lord Oxford and Shakespeare
were one and the same playwright. This hypothesis would have to be corroborated
by further research. Henry Peacham, Jr.'s Minerva Brittanna (1612) also employed
the little English pronoun 'I' on its title page tribute which said in Latin, "By
the mind I will be seen. Some commentators have suggested that the 'I' refers
to the phonetic form of the Earl of Oxford's initials, EO. The attached Latin
pun on the page is confirmatory, saying in anagramic Latin, 'Thy Name is Vere'. "I'/IO/EO
appears throughout the puzzle-book, as repetitions of the mental teaser and
a reminder of the person honored in the book as the modern Minerva, or Mind."

Anonymous

An Oxfordian Emmapiphany

I realised back in at least 1964, at the quatrocentennial of the Stratford
man, that we knew nothing relevant about WS, and people I respected thought
Bacon and Marlowe non-starters, and I had a sort of mythology of Shakespeare's
miraculous visitation of the earth, as a complete mystery, which actually enabled
me to have an INCREASED projective intensity about him. Later I got to know
Freud fancied another candidate but that did not yet impact me, though I clocked
it somewhere inside me.

Then in 1988 I came across Ogburn in paperback in a bookshop .

The title - The Mystery of William Shakespeare - instantly of course drew
me, and when I read the blurb I had an epiphany - I realised my mythical 'unknown'
Shakespeare was moonshine, and I instantly apprehended, 'this is the one',
of Oxford. I did not immediately believe it was proven, and I still have reservations
every February 29th in Leap Year, you understand (it was Shapiro's dishonesty
did me that favour!) but it was for me like a scientist or mathematician who
'knows' the answer, but has not yet worked out the proof.It was like
that famous moment in Jane Austen's Emma:'Harriet was standing at one of the
windows. Emma turned round to look at her in consternation, and hastily said,"Have
you any idea of Mr. Knightley's returning your affection?""Yes," replied Harriet
modestly, but not fearfully—"I must say that I have."Emma's eyes were instantly
withdrawn; and she sat silently meditating, in a fixed attitude, for a few
minutes.

A few minutes were sufficient for making her acquainted with her own heart.
A mind like hers, once opening to suspicion, made rapid progress. She touched—she
admitted—she acknowledged the whole truth. Why was it so much worse that Harriet
should be in love with Mr. Knightley, than with Frank Churchill? Why was the
evil so dreadfully increased by Harriet's having some hope of a return? It
darted through her, with the speed of an arrow, that Mr. Knightley must marry
no one but herself!

Mente Videbor(i)

The name Peacham keeps cropping up when Oxfordians are called upon to support their claims. Here, unbelievably, is what they are calling evidence.

A brief recapitulation is in order. In this essay I have argued that Minerva
Britanna cleverly incorporates an interlocking structure of emblematic knowledge
which completes the alleged anagram, TIB(i) NOM. DE VERE-which is only implied
in the title page motto MENTE.VIDEBOR-when the entire book is taken into consideration.
The two complementary elements in this interlocking schema-emblems #66 and
#180-interlock with one another as well as with the title page and contain
references to such "de Vere" phrases as "Allah Vere" (Lord Vere) and "Vivere" (to
live) (19).In considering this solution, it should be emphasized that anagrams-like
the symbolism of mottoes or images-are an elusive and intrinsically subjective
form of evidence. Friedman and Friedman, in their classic work on cryptology
in the Shakespeare question, classify anagrams as un-keyed transposition ciphers.

They caution that "even when the anagram has only a few letters, there may
be more than one 'solution'; and when it has many letters there can be many
'solutions'- all equally valid" (19). Their criteria for a valid anagram is
as follows: "in order to be 'perfect' an anagram should not only involve a
rearrangement of letters without additions or deletions; the resulting word
or words should in some way comment upon the original" (92).Critics of my solution
will of course argue that it requires the "addition" of a "missing" letter-that
itty-bitty "i." which is omitted from the title page-to complete the anagram.

Henry Peacham, they will say, would never have been as clever or devious as
the solution of discovering this "i" on another page of the book implies. Such
critics, of course, state a belief and not a fact; there is obviously no point
in arguing with them.It must be conceded, on the other hand, that the solution
I propose possesses the quality of intrinsic coherence which is the defining
attribute of all significant scientific theorems.(emphasis ours)

What the 'ell?

Chapman executed exactly the same strategy in the next response by d'Olive.
The word cheveril, as H. H. Holland has demonstrated, was used by
Shake-speare to allude to Vere: che-ver-il. How this piece of verbal
prestidigitation was managed by Shake-speare was explained by Holland in
Shakespeare Through Oxford Glasses (Cecil Palmer, 1923; p. 72):

Cheveril in the original is spelt "cheverell", and inch is either "inch" or "ynche".
It will be noticed, therefore, that the word "cheverell" ends with "ell", and
it commences with "che". "Che" is three-fifths of the word "inche", and is
therefore "an inche narrow". Now let us stretch the word cheverell a little.

Thus : Che -- ver -- ell.

We find the word "ver" stretching from the inch narrow to the ell broad. Vere,
or Ver, is the Earl of Oxford's own name, and thus no doubt is left as to whom
the wit of cheverell, stretching from an inch narrow to an ell broad, refers.

`

More on pseudonyms from William Ray

"Although there was an Arthur Brooke, who died in passage to Le Havre in 1563, the author of the early Romeo romance–also given as Arthur Brooke–must have been De Vere. He needed a pseudonym to publish his first creation. Rother, the genus for oxen, + brook meaning ford=ox-ford. The pun between Arthur and author is another subtext. The elder Brooke went to college with him and was not known to have been a writer. The name confusion served De Vere's pseudonymous purpose. When the other Brooke died at sea, George Turberville wrote his elegy. George Turberville had been a disciple of De Vere's poet-uncle, Henry Howard. He both honored the drowned youth and protected young De Vere's pen-name."(A brook and
a ford are the same thing! Who knew?)

An ostrich-eye view of the SAQ

Roger Stritmatter: I think this thread illustrates the chief
communication problem with discussion of this topic. Many people who hold the
traditional view hold this view very strongly, and in inverse proportion, usually,
to the amount of actual knowledge that they possess about it. This is for a
variety of reasons, but chief among them is the powerful influence of a rather
superficial college education.

Shakespeare professors everywhere are fond of reinforcing the myth with a combination
of their own dogmatism and a sneering attitude towards anyone who questions
their authority to make pronouncements on the topic. It is only natural that
most students, who respect authority, will take these experts at their word.

Then they come across a website or a facebook page that offers a contrary opinion,
and very frequently they express themselves in unintentionally offensive ways
towards those who have actually studied the topic and hence have a more fact-based
perspective to offer. When this happens and they realize that their superficial
knowledge coupled with the Professor's dogmatism are not enough to get the
Oxfordians to back down, they tend to fall silent or run away. Anyone have
ideas on how to prevent this pattern?

OmniVereous Elizabethans

Mark Anderson genuflecting to Rambler

Could Shaksper read or write? Did he maybe crab out some parts of the apocryphal
plays? And what was the setup between him and Oxford?

Perennial questions, all. But worry not, folks. Rambler reports in with a cross-examination
of two key witnesses: Ben Jonson and George Chapman. Quoting:

"Chapman couldn't get enough of Vere in his plays, he really was hic et ubique.
In the whole gamut of Chapman's dramas I've not come across anything which
would suggest that Shaxper was a writer.
The only clear allusion was Lord Medice in The Gentleman Usher, who refused
to read on the perfectly respectable grounds that he couldn't. Ok for him,
terrible for Shaxper.

Jonson and Chapman seemed to compete with each other over which of them could
incorporate Vere into the largest number of characters in their plays. I think
that Jonson won by a short head. Medice was Chapman's Sogliardo. Thereafter
each of them dropped Shaxper for the duration.

Which is why I incline to the view that, for all his implausibility as the
Poet, Shaxper the actor was initially a portmanteau Bathyllus for writers,
but ultimately became linked more exclusively with one particular brand. Not
being anything other than a writer by occasional necessity would account for
the rotten penmanship. Whether he was the activist broker proposed by Brooks
is an intriguing, but not an imperative question to answer."

Ominous nihil

Dennis Baron leans out too far over the precipice in search of a pun

This post is written as an answer to questions
from Marie Merkel. The puns on the Earl of Oxford`s motto in the Shakespeare
plays are not just simple one liners; they are quite extensive and are the
framework on which the dialogue and most of the plot is formed. Act three
Scene four of Henry V is all in French. Why? What is the reason for writing
a whole scene in French? The answer is that Oxford wanted to create a pun
on his motto from specific Latin phrases.

What is Katharine doing in this scene? She is learning the English for French,
word for word. But she is doing more than this, she is repeating the list of
English words as it gets longer. The Latin verbum pro verbo reddere means:
to translate word for word; verba bene reddere means: to recite words like
a parrot; and aliquid ad verbum ediscere means: to learn word for word, off
by heart. Katharine says that the English words cown and foot are shameful
because ladies of honour cannot say them in from of lords of France; this line
is a contrivance so that Katharine can then say that nevertheless she will
recite the words again. The French neanmoins is the English nevertheless, which
in Latin is nihilominus; Oxford uses the adversative particle as an alternative
to nihil. He intentionally creates an elaborate pun on vero nihil verius, his
motto, by using the Latin phrases which are combined with nihilominus.

Apocalypse Now

Sonje Fox: consider

deVere was the bastard son of a parthenogenic mother (parthenos biblically
has been argued over for centuries ... I hold it means premenstrual woman not
yet initiated into the rites of womanhood & /or admission to the menstrual
tent, rather than condition of hymen) the zodiacal Virgo also bolsters Elizabeth's
claims,

I use Elizabeth's lunar return of September 20, 1548 some 13 days after her
13th birthday, as deVere's birthchart. (I use the full moon of September 7 BC
conjuncting Jupiter Saturn in Pisces for that of Christ). This means that mother
and son both have their natal moon in Taurus, deVere's chart sensitively attuned
to that of the Master Thespian, Jaques of Stratford who's Taurus sun conjuncted
the moons of Elizabeth and Oxenford and whose Libran Moon conjuncted Edward's
Libran sun. His (Edward's) retrograde progressed mercury in Virgo went direct
conjuncting E's Virgo sun when he was six, eg 1554, when he initiated his studies,
I took this as primary evidence supporting my hypothetical birthchart for deVere
rather than the April 1550 birthdate, which Beauclerk dismisses as scribbled
in by William Cecil 25 years after the fact, and probably commemorated the
date that Edward was weaned. The slapdash wedding of Earl John and Margery
Golding suspect, along with his half-sister's suit regarding his bastardy.

This structure of parthenogenic mother with magickal child resonate(s/d)
with the structure of the Christian mother/son paradigm enabling the nationalization
via the Tudor revolution of Catholicism. DeVere is therefore functionally
a Christ figure, and the Reformation/Renaissance version of the Second Coming.

The current Apocalyptic Age (while I celebrated the summer solstice 2013
in London finding Fisher's Folly w/Michael Morse & the other pilgrims,
I spent the Winter Solstice 2012 in Guatemala and find the confluent predictions,
Mayan, Revelation & Modern (aquarian age) compelling much thought ...
Apocalypse means, after all, a Revelation, an Unveling.

Our own De Vere birthchart reveals a secret hidden code!

Stephanie Hughes explains biographical correspondence

Seven Shakespeare plays revolve around a situation that matches Oxford's relationship
with Anne Cecil. Beginning with what was probably the first one written, Pericles,
in which it seems he was inclined to believe the rumor that Anne was impregnated
by Burghley. From then on it's his fault. In two plays the protagonist runs
away from a loving woman, Two Gents and All's Well. Although Anne didn't follow
him, as she does in both plays, she must have been on his mind. All's Well
in particular follows the story so closely, making himself the cad and her
the the heroine that it must have been produced at Court to apologize for his
mistreatment of her.

In two it's his jealousy that's the problem, Winter's Tale and Othello. Othello
in particular follows what probably really happened, with Iago representing
Henry Howard. It's the background to Hamlet. Many have noted that Hamlet and
Ophelia have a lot of history. Certainly Oxford's relationship with Anne is
mirrored in Hamlet's relationship with Ophelia. And it's the sub-plot in Much
Ado and Measure for Measure. In all but the first of these, he's the villain
and Anne is the patient, long suffering, innocent wife. And you say that there's
no evidence that Oxford was remorseful?

Will falls into oblivion—twice

Chris Pannell I haven't
read a lot of Nabokov, but my favourite story of his is "A Forgotten Poet" wherein
a prominent cultural organization, acting on behalf of the Russian nation,
decides to build a monument to a poet (Perov) who had disappeared at a young
age. It is assumed at the time of the story setting, that he drowned in the
River Oredezh fifty years ago. So in the lead-up to this fiftieth anniversary
of his death, his works are collected and re-issued and there is a flurry of
attention in the papers and the salons over the young genius who wrote so well
of a bygone era. The subscription to pay for the monument is generously supported
by the literary and wealthy classes of St.Petersburg. The only problem is that
at the first commemorative meeting to honour the young dead poet, and to officially
commission the monument, up pops an old shabby man claiming to be the poet,
and who makes claim on the money raised. He is too, too real, too probable
for the imaginations of his supporters who try to press on as if he wasn't
there. It's never clear if he IS the poet they all admire or just a local madman.
But he continues quite reasonably with his claim, interrupting their speeches
and generally making mayhem out of the event. The notion of forgetting a body
of literary work, and then "remembering" it, and then paradoxically "forgetting" it
again, runs through the story. It does remind me of "Shakespeare" disappearing
from view after 1604 until the First Folio came out, and then being slowly
forgotten again until the mid-1800s

The limits of self deception

Just in case you thought there were any, watch John D Lavendoski, a peacock
with no feathers, fan his tail and polish his halo before this delivering this
truly staggering lecture to a Strat-leaning fellow member of the ShakesVere
Group. Besides being a landmark in self-defeating argument, the excerpt deserves
its place just for the staggering insight JDL displays in noticing that Jane
Austen and Tolstoy are different writers.

Oxford's background is as different from that of the Elizabethan professional
playwright as Jane Austen's is from Hemingway's. Though perhaps not quite so
different from Tolstoy's as JDL claims, entitling us to wonder how much he
knows about either.

Actually, Tolstoy's modest, cadet-branch, rural gentility and connections
to the Napoleonic Wars were actually rather similar to Austen's, when viewed
in a broad comparative light. As is his technique, even visible throughout
his sprawling epic, War and Peace, of working closely with a small group of
families. And whilst Austen didn't write any Stiva's, just how similar are
Wickham, Willoughby and Crawford to Vronsky? Oxfordians often say the daftest
things when they are trying hardest to sound wise.

The acute irony of the hideously smug, final rhetorical flourish will, of
course, be entirely invisible to its author.

I learned something new today. I learned that you have absolutely no
understanding of the "seeds" of skeptical doubt regarding the SAQ

I am somewhat in awe at the nature of the misconception....so please let me
TRY to explain some things to you.

1) There are no authorship skeptics (whom I have ever met) who think
that one cannot be a great writer if one didn't go to college.

2) There are no authorship skeptics (whom I have ever met) who think that one
cannot be a great writer if one is from a rural population...even one which
is mostly illiterate.

3) There are no authorship skeptics (whom I have ever met) who think that those
innate gifts of observation, cognition and expression, which all great writers
possess, are necessarily based on formal education or exalted social status...either
in youth or in advancing age.

4) In other words, no skeptic denies that seemingly self-made "Faulkners" (or
Hunter S. Thompsons for that matter) can and do appear with regular frequency....not
only in Western culture, but in all cultures around the Globe.

5) It is all a matter of what TYPE of cannon such writers would be able to
create.

For example: Fitzgerald simply could not have created the Hemingway canon...and
vice versa. Austen could not have created the Tolstoy canon and vice versa.
Dickens could not have created the Poe canon...or the Twain canon....or the
Joseph Conrad canon and vice versa.

Why ?? Put simply the life experience and the 'particular opportunities for
particular observations and particular musings' of a given writer simply must
have some "match" to the canon which they create OUT of those selfsame opportunities,
observations and musings.

Oxfordians (and most other authorship skeptics) tend to embrace that simple
concept. Stratfordians, apparently, do not. (The
idea that writers from similar backgrounds will produce similar work certainly
is a handy concept for simpletons, especially those without the wit to realise
that eliminates Oxford as an professional playwright since they all shared
the same background, commoners, grammar school, acting etc.) Ed.

6) Put another way, authorship skeptics are not arguing that the likes of a
mostly self trained Hunter S. Thompson, etc. cannot EXIST...or that he might
exist but could not be a great writer producing a notable canon of work. Skeptics
are merely arguing that the resulting canon would not look very much like the
canon which Shakespeare (whoever he was) was able to create.

Why ?? Again....because their life experiences, combined with their innate
gifts and their own intellectual inclinations would not in any way "match" the
elements required to create anything comparable to the Shakespearean body of
work.

I am not talking (with regards to these other writers) about their lacking
insight into the human heart....or lacking in ability to craft fine metaphors
and similes....or lacking in the ability to spin creative plots and memorable
characters....for surely great writers of all backgrounds are capable of that.

What I am talking about is sociology....and the life experiences that go with
the life a writer chooses to lead.

7) There is no "snobbery" based on class or education on the skeptical side
of the SAQ. That is just a truly ridiculous totem...a twisted claim used by
knaves to make a trap for those whom they hope to fool (to riff on Kipling)

There is however sociology...a concept which explains why Dickens was able
to write "Dickens"....why Austen was able to write "Austen"....and why Faulkner
was able to write "Faulkner".

The dictums of sociology also explains why so many intelligent people (doctors,
lawyers, scientists, engineers, theater professionals, educators, writers,
and "yes"....even a few English Lit Professors) have concluded that Shakspere
was incredibly UNLIKELY to have been able to create the "Shakespeare" canon.

Note: These intelligent people are able to conclude this provided that they
are NOT part of the emotionally-over-attached wing, or the Kool-aide-swilling
wing, or the SBT-fat-living wing, or the Ivory-Tower-Tenure-Craving wing of
the Shakespeare-Industrial-Complex.

That, Mr. Hackman is the root of our argument....and it all has ZERO to do
with snobbery against the potential intellects of rurally-raised-glovers-sons...which
might be very high indeed....and make a given one fit to be anything from Prime
Minister to Pope to Philosopher-King...provided, that is, that his life experiences
matched the needed resume for those jobs.

The seeds of our doubt are rooted in the particular PATHS which this particular
glover's son trod or disdained....vs. the content of the canon itself.

Does ANY of that help you to better understand, sirrah ??

Stephanie Hughes Gems

"Academics are good with details, with focussing in on a small area and putting
it in order, one reason why we have so much good material to work with. But
they’re no good at putting the bits together".

"All Oxfordians agree on one thing (and many on only one thing), that Edward
de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the Shakespeare canon; too
much remains unclear for all of us to agree on everything".

Greg Koch on the creative process in a Washington Post comments column

The trouble with who "Shakespeare" actually was - and why I have doubt about
the rather ignorant commoner we know today as the Stratford man called "Shakespeare" -
had much more to do with how great poets were recognized in the Renaissance.
Exactly where the center of the Arts was located. Great poets did not land
the opportunity of having their works performed on the palace stage because
they were acknowledged in a mediocre opinion book by Francis Meres. They were
cited in dedications of monumental first-time English translations of great
Latin, Greek, Italian and French masterworks. They were in dedicatory verse
from the masterworks of great contemporary poets. They received dedications
from composers. The leading candidate for being the real "Shakespeare" - Edward
de Vere - had such dedications. All too often, Stratfordian theorists believe
other contemporaries provided the imaginative material for "Shakespeare" -
i.e., that he copied them. Such unconvincing theory when the "Shakespere" masterpieces
were exceedingly beautifully, eloquent, genius; an obvious knowledge of royal
prerogative, and his great inventiveness coining hundreds of new English words,
made it absolutely clear he was no follower. He was not a copycat. I suggest
readers join the Jonathan Bate MOOC at Futurelearn.com next month to learn
more about such irrational "copycat" theories. Jonathan is one of the leading "Shakespeare" scholars
in England, and naturally he has no doubt the ignorant man from Stratford known
as "Shakespeare" was a brilliant poet who excelled at copying contemporaries.